


Anchoring

by tacroy



Category: The Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-08-17 04:26:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8130367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tacroy/pseuds/tacroy
Summary: “We are, frankly, skeptical,” says Paget, twirling a stem of champagne in the air with her pointer finger, “that a talented enchantress such as yourself would abandon an engagement with the Chrestomanci in order to conduct an affair with a person of little magical talent, poor Germanic breeding, and questionable taste in fashion.”





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> this is NOT a finished work. i'm posting this entirely to motivate myself to keep working on it! that is to say, i appreciate any encouragement + critique you may wish to leave. thanks for reading!

= 

Aimer, ce n’est pas se regarder l’un l’autre, c’est regarder ensemble dans la même direction.   
Love does not mean gazing at each other, but looking, together, in the same direction.  
Terre des hommes, by Antoine de St-Exupéry

=

The salon is lush. Three cases of ferns sit against the right wall. All of the divans are crimson, velvet and satin, and the heavy wallpaper is a poisonous, wealthy green. Millie tries to hold her shoulders straight, like all of her etiquette teachers attempted to teach her. There are twenty people in the room, men in rich brocade tuxedos, women in tightly laced corsets and thick, obliquely stitched skirts. They are all looking at her, unblinking, and Millie can sense that every one of them is nearly as powerful as she.

Lucienne Paget is dressed more opulently then them all. Her golden Paquin dress is lined with Viennese runic embroidery. Protection and cleanliness radiate from the runes, from the gold, diamonds, and topazes at her neck, ears, and wrists, and even from the leather toes of her shoes, which have been stamped with witch-blessed leaf. Her eyes are a deep green that matches the walls and her porcelain skin glows in the lamplight. She has brows stronger than fashion dictates, a pointed chin, an air of absolute supremacy.

“We are, frankly, skeptical,” says Paget, twirling a stem of champagne in the air with her pointer finger, “that a talented enchantress such as yourself would abandon an engagement with the Chrestomanci in order to conduct an affair with a person of little magical talent, poor Germanic breeding, and questionable taste in fashion.”

Millie’s eyes follow the champagne glass down from the air as it tilts to rest onto Paget pink lips. She cannot draw her gaze from Paget’s throat as it works the bubbly down. Paget is wearing some sort of paint on them that leaves a very faint trace on the glass, the print a pale, pale rose. Paget flicks her pinky idly, and the print vanishes. 

“And yet,” Paget continues, smiling directly at Conrad, who is standing stock still next to Millie, “we do understand the compulsion to leave it all. You, Mademoiselle Asheth, are as full of potential as a star about to go supernova. The temptation to throw the heavy cloak of your obligations as wife of the Chrestomanci off your shoulders has clearly and understandably reached its apex. We appreciate that you have come to us in your time of need.” 

Her long fingers curve around the stem of the champagne flute. 

“Le Richau is delighted to provide you with a break from the past.” 

Snap. Conrad flinches beside her. Careless, Lucienne tosses away the two halves of the flute.

“Should you be willing to guarantee your loyalty to our organization, we will in turn guarantee your protection from the Chrestomanci, the English government, and any affiliated agents who may pursue you.”

Millie smooths her hands over her skirts. She swallows. She has worked on this speech for months. Conrad presses his arm against hers. It is a blatant show of affection, and the stiffening of backs in the room at the impropriety of the gesture gives her courage.

“Mrs. Paget,” Millie says, her voice very small, “thank you. You are aware that I have been considering this… course of action… for some time. I was ill-treated at Le Rosey, something for which de Witt had no sympathy.” Her tone hardens. “Chant had no sympathy either. It became apparent soon after my return from Series Seven that he had merely brought me back to use my magic for his own experiments.”

“Not to seem without sympathy, as it were,” says Paget unsympathetically, “but what were the experiments?”

Millie hesitates, then allows a small smile to grace her lips. “I designed most of them myself, to be honest with you,” she says. “The ideas were all Chant’s, but he has no follow through.” She lets out a little laugh. “In more ways than one, if you will. They pertained mainly to the channeling of magic through—” Millie pauses delicately. “—nonstandard material, as well as the use of unorthodox vectors.”

Paget runs her thumb down the inside of her wrist, considering. “Not research one would expect the office of the Chrestomanci to undertake.”

“Indeed,” says Millie. “Apparently the experiments were started by a protegee of de Witt’s, Mr. Mordecai Roberts. De Witt did not approve. But as you are undoubtedly aware, Roberts and Chant are quite close. They are, I will allow, two of the most talented spirit travellers we have. This brought them together. This, and their interest in some of the more pagan discoveries they made in their explorations through the Related Worlds.”

“Fascinating. Maxime? Any questions?”

A paunchy, pale man in his late 50’s taps his cigar against the neck of the swan ashtray hovering next to his bergere, considering. The set of his mouth is mostly hidden behind an extravagant waxed moustache, and but his eyes are keen. “Many specific ones, cherie, but none I would be impertinent enough to ask before we know a little more of Mademoiselle Asheth.”

“Well then,” says Paget. “Ladies and gentlemen, shall we vote to induct Mademoiselle Millie Asheth into our society?”

Heads nod. Millie laces her hands together tightly. She tries not to, but she can feel the wariness radiating from Conrad, roiling the blood in her veins.

“All in favor?”

Hands rise across the room. Paget nods in satisfaction. “Mademoiselle Asheth—welcome to Le Richau.”

=

After the vote, Le Richau takes them to dinner in sleek black automobiles whose engines make almost no noise. Millie and Conrad ride with Maxime, who turns out to be Vicomte Maxime de Quercy-Laimé, and his wife, Vicomtesse Victoire. Victoire says little; she is decades younger than Maxime, and delicate like an unleaded vase. 

Maxime begins his interrogation lightly, but by the time they arrive at the restaurant, Millie has crushed the contents of her purse in her clenched hands. Maxime is no magical amatuer, as the society pages would have one believe. The nature of his questions make it clear that he has studied under no less than the Queen herself, has visited at the Institute in Dakaar, and read every paper de Witt or any Chrestomanci ever published about magic. She suspects strongly that he is an enchanter. Conrad listens with simple awe as Millie, clearly agitated, nevertheless responds with depth and accuracy. Conrad’s a smart man, quite talented with magic, but the conversation goes out of his depth in mere minutes. Victoire simply stares out the shaded windows, her face marked by moving lights.

As the automobile purrs to a stop, Maxime sits back, stroking his moustaches. “I am quite impressed,” he says.

“How delightful for you,” Millie snaps. “I’m exhausted.”

Maxime roars with laughter. The sound fills the car and makes Conrad jump for what must be the fifth time tonight. “I like you, Millie,” Maxime says, grinning. “You’ll fit in here. Most of us are just about as intelligent as you, and apparently just as prickly. Don’t worry about offending anyone—all we are truly interested in is the progress of magic.”

“Good,” says Millie, prim again. “I was worried about fitting in.”

Maxime winks at her and heaves himself out of the car.

The restaurant is large and low lit, hung everywhere with dusty chandeliers and purple draperies. Conrad notes with little surprise that Millie’s skin is the darkest in the room. Most of the patrons actually turn to look at her as she sweeps into her seat near the head of the table reserved for Le Richau. Conrad sits at her right, next to Victoire, who is trembling. Paget shoots Victoire an irritated glance as she settles into her chair at the head of the table.

The maître d’ brings them a frightening wine list that takes all of Conrad’s skill to interpret. He simply cannot help but lean into Millie’s warmth, aware as he is that their every move is being closely monitored. As Paget introduces the society, Millie’s right hand disappears under the table to rest, comforting, on his knee. Conrad feels the stares like brands.

“You may not know,” says Paget, “but Le Richau was originally started by my dear husband, Cosme, as a reading club.” She nods generously to the stick-thin man next to her. Cosme has frizzy brown hair and an owlish expression, and his suit is at least twenty years out of date. Conrad is frankly surprised that such a man would begin anything at all. “I began choosing the books, and soon we all developed an interest in the more occult forms of magic. We selected new applicants very carefully. And we gained an international reputation for experimentation.”

“It is quite deserved, judging by the illuminating conversation I had with Vicomte Maxime in the automobile,” says Millie. 

“Ah, Maxime is one of our guiding lights,” says Paget. “Let me introduce to a few of our other luminaries. You have no doubt heard of Monsieur François Conti’s papers on transmutation potions.” A large-nosed man halfway down the table bobs his head modestly. “Madame Anna Saboulin writes on therionology. We are often attended by the Duc d’Valois, Robert le Fézensac, a genius of abjuration; tonight he is in Lyon on business.” She continues around the table, noting another few who are missing. Conrad recognizes many of the names from textbooks and treatises. 

As if on cue, the maître d’ returns as soon as the introductions are over. Conrad allows Millie to order for him, acutely aware of the implications; indeed, when the maître d’ has left, Paget turns to Conrad for the first time. “Monseiur Tesdinic, you have been quiet. Tell us about yourself.”

Conrad is reminded distinctly of the first time he was introduced at the Castle, and everyone—even Christopher and Millie, the traitors—simply waited for him to speak. “I hail from Series Seven,” he begins, projecting his voice down the table. “Gabriel de Witt discovered that I had a gift for capturing the seeming of alternate possibilities. I’ve been at Chrestomanci Castle for five years now.”

“Tell me, do you feel your essence fading yet?” Conti asked. 

“It will not fade for some time,” Millie breaks in. She smiles a little condescendingly at Conrad, and continues. “I devised a minor charm. He learned to blow glass, and made a sphere that I laced with some special magics. We mixed his blood and some earth from underneath the hospital he was born in, enclosed it in the glass, and buried it outside his room at the Castle. He had felt some separation, but I believe the sphere should give him a few more years in Twelve.”

“‘A minor charm,’” says Maxime quietly. “Madmoiselle, you must be aware that Anchoring is considered almost impossible.”

Millie shrugs. “It was not difficult. I know Anchoring is merely theoretical, but…” She runs her hand up Conrad’s arm to rest on the back of his neck. “I will do anything to keep him here.”

There is a heavy silence at the table. Conrad feels tendrils of magic reaching out from Paget, Maxime, and a few of the others, winding around his core, testing the Anchor. He remembers the orange glow of the glass in front of him, mixed with Christopher and Millie’s violet sparks of binding and building. He remembers Christopher holding his forearm, carefully, as Millie drew a knife down the inside of his wrist. He remembers trembling as he mixed the blood and earth together in the glass with a long copper spoon, and Millie pressing against his shoulder for reassurance, and Christopher’s breath warm on his neck. It had taken energy he had not known he had to turn the spoon twelve times, widdershins, around the glass, to finally Anchor himself in the correct world.

“That is remarkable,” says Paget baldly. “Millie, that is truly remarkable. When did you perform this spell?”

“A couple of months ago,” says Millie. “It was difficult to hide from de Witt, but—”

“You hid this working from de Witt?” says Saboulin, a gray-haired woman down the table.

“Yes,” says Millie, slowly. “De Witt is of the conviction that people not from this world should not be in this world. As you know, it took some convincing for him to allow me to stay here.”

“How are you Anchored?” Saboulin demands.

“To be honest,” says Millie, because nobody at the Castle could come up with a reply for this, “I would rather not say.”

“Hm,” says Paget. “In that case, we will undoubtedly find out soon.” Her smile does not reach her eyes. “Please, tell us more about your Anchoring charm.”

Millie explains the process as the first courses are served. Conrad takes the opportunity to lean over to Victoire.

“We have not been introduced,” he says, reaching out his hand. “I’m Conrad Tesdinic. You’re Victoire Quercy-Laimé, right?”

“Yes,” she says softly. Victoire has lank blonde hair and dark eyes. He cannot sense any magical talent in her, but there are strong protective spells on her jewelry; indeed, one of her rings will negate any poison she consumes, regardless of its potency. The strength of the charm makes his eyes water. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Can you tell me any more about this society? Millie was not exactly forthcoming with details when we were… packing.”

Victoire shrugs. “I am not a witch, and I have only been married to Maxime for a few years. All I know is that they take rooms on the Rue Saint-Anne for the experiments they cannot carry out at their headquarters or their homes. Maxime has an extensive workshop. Most of them do.”

“Is Maxime kind to you?”

Victoire’s eyes are dull. “Is Millie kind to you?”

Conrad allows his chin to drop. “She can be. When the mood is right.”

“Or utterly wrong. Nothing in between.”

“Of course,” he agrees.

A water glass falls off of a table a few meters away, and a waiter with a pointed beard throws his hand out. The glass floats softly back up, collecting its water.

Conrad tries not to smile. “Excuse me,” he murmurs to Victoire. “Millie, dear, I’ll be right back.”

Millie waves him off, in the middle of listening to an explanation of occult deviances in mercury tinctures. Conrad wends his way to the men’s room.

There’s already someone in the toilet he chooses, a red-haired waiter who was nearby when the water glass fell. “Ah, excuse me, sir,” he says. Then he catches sight of Conrad. “Sir, may I say, you made an excellent wine choice tonight.”

Conrad snaps the door closed. “Shut up, Christopher.”

The waiter grins. The red in his hair melts to inky blackness, and his face smooths and flattens until it is sharp and planar. “Surely you know that merlot simply does not go with brined white fish.”

“We’re in France. I expected the fish to be in a sauce.”

“Fair point.” Christopher sinks onto divan in the corner, crossing his long legs. Nobody else could make a waiter’s penguin suit look so sumptuous. “How’s it going?”

“These people are horrible,” says Conrad, running his hand through his hair. He leans up against the sink and glares at Christopher. “They’re horrible to be around. They say horrible things. They seem to be doing horrible things, too. I didn’t entirely follow what one of them was telling Mille, but judging by her eyebrows, it was rather close to necromancy.”

“Shocking that I’ll have to get the details out of her, rather than you,” sighs Christopher. “I knew we should have trained you up more.” He shifts around a bit on the divan. “How is she?”

“She’s holding up perfectly,” says Conrad. “It’s a little frightening how convincing she is. They seem to believe everything, so far. The affair, and all.” He tries to say this casually, but Christopher’s hand closes briefly into a fist, reflexive. “They’ve promised to protect us from—what were the exact words?—the Chrestomanci, the English government, and any affiliated agents who may pursue us.”

“And they’re doing so well so far,” Christopher murmurs. “Any idea where you’ll be staying yet?”

“With Paget seems likeliest,” says Conrad. “I don’t think that viscount cares about keeping as close an eye on us as she does. Possibly she’s already offered to Millie. They’re essentially ignoring me.”

“Any interest in your talent?”

“No. Maybe it’ll come up to a greater extent later. Or not at all. I’m not nearly as tempting an acquisition as Millie.”

“Yes, but you are part of the package for them.” Christopher leans over, lacing his fingers together. A line of hair falls onto his forehead, enticing. “I’m glad it’s going well. You should go. I’ll find a way to meet the both of you next time—give it under thirty-six hours, but over twenty-four. And—” From a pocket, Christopher produces a folded piece of paper. “You’ve got sixty seconds to write a message on that. Then it’ll disappear, and I’ll see it on my linked paper. There are two sides—two messages, two uses. I can send you a message too, so keep an eye on it. Once sent, the messages are permanent on the other paper, so keep it well hidden.”

“You ought to spy professionally.”

Christopher snorts. “Absolutely not. Much too exhausting.”

“Yes, it should be quite retiring, being the Chrestomanci.”

Christopher eyes him. “How they haven’t caught on that you’re not a lapdog I’ll never know. Clearly they’re magnitudes dimmer than we expected.” He unfolds himself from the divan. “Give this to Millie for me,” he adds, casual, and presses a kiss to Conrad’s cheek.

Conrad can feel his ears go red, but he manages to keep his face passive. “Will do,” he says, voice a bit lower than usual. 

“And—make sure you look out for each other,” Christopher goes on. He’s shoved his hands in his pockets and is looking intently at a spot up and to the right of Conrad’s head. “She needs protected. But so do you, Grant.”

Conrad wants to say that hasn’t needed protected since he was twelve and Christopher spent an hour’s walk through an estate peeling death spells off of him, or that Christopher hasn’t called him that since they got to Twelve and “Con” (or “Tesdinic,” if Christopher was feeling feisty) became the norm. Instead he shifts a bit and makes Christopher meet his eyes. “I’ll watch out for her,” he says, “and she’ll watch out for me. And we’ll be all the safer because you’re out there looking after the both of us.”

“Yes. Well. Quite right.” Christopher clears his throat. “Well then. I’ll be going. Keep in touch.” And he ducks out.

Conrad gives himself a moment. The mirror shows an assured young man in a nice, clean, fashionable suit—whatever Paget says about it, it’s the latest London style. His hair is combed neatly and his pants are pressed. You’d guess he was in his early twenties, but Conrad is only seventeen. He has not been afraid this whole time. Not for Millie, who he knows to be an unbreakable diamond. Not of sudden laughter or breaking glass, at which the character of Conrad—adulterous, almost magicless, cowed by his enchantress lover—would jump. Not of Paget, or her false smiles, or Maxime’s palpable power, or of Victoire’s telling tremble. Conrad has not been truly afraid since he was in another world and all of his uncles were trying to kill him. Or, at least, he doesn’t think he has been. Now, in the empty space between Christopher—leaving the building, now, hailing a cab—and Millie—laughing at the tale of an unfortunate warlock’s accident with a beaker of hemlock—he feels a shroud of uncertainty rise. 

He turns on the tap and washes his hands. He gives himself one last, unselfconscious glance in the mirror. Then he opens the door and goes back to the table.

=

After dinner, most of the society peels off, headed to their homes. Paget, as expected, offers Millie and Conrad a suite at her townhouse. Millie accepts, saying something about needing to liquidate her jewels before taking a hotel room. They are accompanied to her house by Cosme Paget, Maxime, Victoire, and four others: Conti, Saboulin, and a husband and wife pair, Thierry and Marie-Anne Durand. Conrad gets the impression that these six—not counting Victoire and Cosme, of course—are at the core of the group’s power.

Paget’s townhouse is more like a small palace near the Seine in le Faubourg. It is at least four centuries old, with an expansive courtyard, stables, and cellars for the servants. Millie and Conrad are shown to their rooms on the second floor, down the hall from the master suite. 

“Paget did not say when we should come down,” Conrad says, sinking onto an ornate fauteuil near the fireplace. Millie, on her knees peering under the bed, merely hums in acknowledgement. 

“Give me a moment,” she says, waving a gold button out of the mattress. “I need to refasten my corset.” She places the button in a dish and stands up to peer into a lamp. 

In five minutes, the dish is full of buttons. Conrad tilts his head at her. She shakes her head at the dish, thinks for a moment, then crosses to the fire and throws them in. 

“That’s one way to do it,” Conrad says, grinning.

“She’ll have expected that,” Millie says, stroking her chin. “There are bound to be more in here.”

“You’re not capable of finding all of them?”

“Of course I am, you idiot,” Millie snaps. Her face doesn’t change, though, and she smiles at Conrad apologetically. “Do you think I’m an enchantress for nothing?”

She moves to the middle of the room and sits, cross-legged, eyes closed. Conrad watches as she places her hands flat on the floor in front of her. Carefully, she draws a box around herself. Hints of spell glint in the air. When the box is complete, she pushes her hands out, and the box widens until it fills the room.

“Well?” Conrad says.

“Truly soundproof,” says Millie. She sounds tired, and looks a little pale. “Only Christopher or de Witt could break that.” She tries to stand, but wobbles, and Conrad rushes over to help her up. “Speaking of, how is Christopher?”

“You know,” says Conrad, escorting her to the edge of the bed. “The same. He gave us this for communication and said he’d check in in a day and a half or so.” He produces the paper, which she takes carefully.

“Goodness,” she says, turning the paper over in her hands. “This is impressive. The message can’t be intercepted. Most two-way papers aren’t at all secure. I didn’t think he could manage this kind of charm; it takes quite a lot of patience. And it’s heavily layered—Paget won’t even know it exists. I could carry it in my clutch and she wouldn’t know a spell was there.” She gives him the paper back, and he deposits it on a desk. 

“Should we go back down?” he asks, coming to sit next to her. She shifts a bit, giving him room.

“No,” she says. Her spine is very straight, and she is careful to leave room between their arms. “One of them is going to come get us.”

Conrad frowns. “What’s wrong?”

Millie rubs her face. “Conrad, I hate this. I feel like I’m betraying Christopher.”

Conrad’s stomach goes cold. “Millie, you can’t…. We’ve discussed this. It’s part of the act.”

“It doesn’t feel like it.” She stands up abruptly. “I don’t want to feel like this. It’s unfair. It’s an awful idea. I wish we wouldn’t have done it.”

Her words hit him like a punch to the chest. “Millie—it’s the best option, you know it is. Otherwise they’d be going in with no information—who knows how much power these people have—”

“I know,” snaps Millie—really snaps, this time. “I know, Con, I know that it’s the best option, but that doesn’t mean I like it. It’s making me—” She takes a deep, shaky breath. “—it’s making me hate myself.”

“Oh, Millie, please—” He can’t help it. He goes to her and wraps her in his arms. She’s crying against his shoulder, and God help him, every tear burns like acid. “Please don’t. It’s okay. He understands. He gave me this—” He kisses her damp cheek. “He loves you. He loves you.” He presses his sleeve to her eyes and she takes his wrist. “He loves you. Please, Millie—”

She freezes against him. “Someone’s coming,” she whispers. In a second, her face is dry and her eyes are clear, and he can smell the magic of it. “Conrad, we have to—they’re not going to knock. We have to play to this. Do you understand?”

Her eyes are clear and hard. He nods shortly.

She kisses him on the lips.

Everything familiar about her is gone. He’s kissed women before, and it’s always been like coming home—like walking into a warm house and sinking into a familiar chair. Kissing Millie is completely different. It’s poisonous and enveloping and his bones rattle with anxiety, but he can’t stop. She runs her hands into his hair and he wraps his arms around her waist. She’s so, so warm against him, steaming against his iciness. Her mouth is like velvet. He hates himself as he deepens the kiss, clutching at her corset. Her hands knot in his hair. He’s desperate for more—more skin, more air, more heat. 

Millie pulls away abruptly, staring over his shoulder. Conrad turns. Maxime is standing in the doorway, a horrid smile on his face. “No wonder you didn’t hear me,” he says.

Millie straightens her sleeves. “I’m sure you could have knocked harder, Maxime,” she says. She’s flushed and her nostrils flare with each breath. Conrad realizes that the silence spell had prevented them from hearing any noise at the door. “Shall we, Conrad?”

“Of course,” says Conrad, trying to stay in his skin. He extends his hand, and she takes his forearm, laying her small hand across his wrist.

The mere feeling makes him go all prickly. Oh dear, he thinks, allowing himself to be swept out of the room and downstairs. This is going to go so well. 

They spend a long hour in the salon escalating the sham. Millie began to give out nasty details about her supposed experiments that kept Paget and the others on the edge of their seats. They arrange to spend a few days in Paget’s lab to test a hypothesis regarding the reanimation of rats that had been electrocuted. Conrad felt goosebumps breaking out over his arms.

By the time it’s late enough to excuse themselves for bed, Conrad is mainly nauseous. Millie has been talking, with increasing enthusiasm, about what is indeed Le Richau’s ultimate goal: the permanent reanimation of dead humans. This is what they had all suspected all along, but it’s one thing to have it confirmed—and in such graphic detail. 

“You’re frightening me,” Conrad says after Millie has locked the door and redone the silence spell. “I know you’re a good liar, but I didn’t want to know that you were this good.”

“It’s certainly no fun for me,” Millie says drily. She’s unpinning her hair slowly so as not to lose any pins, like she usually does. “I didn’t know a thing about necromancy three months ago. This is just about the worst final exam anyone could administer.”

“I mean, it’s very impressive,” Conrad says, untying his shirtsleeves. “Alarming, but impressive.”

He’s watching her for any trace of anxiety, but her frown is only directed at her hair, which has twisted into a bird’s nest. “Drat these pins,” she hisses. “Henrietta spelled them for me, but I think she did it wrong. Look, it’s coming off in my hair.”

Conrad goes over to her. Sure enough, there are bits of damp spell tangled in her hair. Conrad picks up a comb and draws them out carefully. Her hair smells of mint and soap.

“I’m sorry to ask,” she says when he puts the comb down, “but—would you mind very much helping me with my corset?”

She’s flushed again, but her eyes are steely. “Of course,” he says, doing his best to be chaste and gentlemanly. “I’m sorry you had to wear it in the first place.”

The debate over Millie’s wardrobe had gone on, entirely without her interest, for weeks leading up to their departure. As soon as Miss Rosalie had come at her with the corset that morning, Millie had regretted not having been more involved.

“It gives me an idea of why most society ladies are so bad tempered,” Millie says. “I never have this much trouble undressing. Give me a moment.”

Without looking at him, she goes into the bathroom attached to the bedroom and closes the door. Conrad debates getting undressed as well, and gets as far as removing his jacket and vest by the time Millie comes out again. He can see her blue silk dress hanging on a steaming rack next to the bathtub. She’s removed her petticoat and camisole; only her chemise and corset remain. Her arms are bare from the shoulder down, and her legs from the knee.

Conrad has rarely been unhappier. Millie is clearly displeased as well. She marches up to him with her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed. “I can’t get the cursed thing off myself. There are some laces in the back I can’t get at. I think Rosalie spelled them into knots.”

“Ah,” says Conrad. He goes around behind her, since she seems stuck to the spot, and picks at the tangled ribbons. Rosalie has indeed put quite a charm on the laces, and it takes him a moment to jimmy it off without harming the fabric. He loosens the corset quickly, then steps away. “I think you can slip it off now.”

Millie tugs at the front experimentally. The corset begins to come off, and Millie clutches it back to her chest. “Thank you,” she says shortly, and marches back into the bathroom.

Conrad changes into his nightclothes hastily. He eyes the bed but can’t quite face the idea yet, and wanders over to the desk instead. He’s perusing volume twelve of the Encyclopaedia Britannica when Millie finally comes out of the bathroom. She goes straight to the bed and sits on the edge of it, as if it’s made of needles.

“I can sleep on the couch,” Conrad offers.

“I think that would be suspicious,” Millie says, “as much as I would like for you to.”

It oughtn’t hurt so much every time she says something like that, but it does. Horribly. “Whatever you think is best, darling.”

Millie scowls at him. “I’ll leave you in the smoking room with Maxime tomorrow if you keep that up.”

Conrad shudders elaborately. “Such sternness. How intimidating.”

“That’s the worst part about this whole thing,” Millie says thoughtfully. “The idea that they believe me more as a towering bitch to you. It’s such a character—the depraved, sex-crazed paki bullying her white lover about. She can’t handle being civilized, which she has to be if she’s going to marry the Chrestomanci, so she ups and leaves. A woman with too much power is not to be trusted, especially if she’s brown.”

“Millie!”

“Well, it’s true. Gabriel never said as much, but you know it’s the type I’m playing.”

He does know it’s true, and he hates de Witt for having conceived of the plan at all. “That’s awful.”

Millie just looks at him. “That’s how it is,” she says.

Conrad has no reply to that. 

Millie fishes a book out of her trunk and takes it to bed. They read for a while, although Conrad couldn’t tell you what was in his book if you paid him. He only remembered it was an encyclopedia when Millie asked him what letter he was on.

“Uh,” he said, flipping the cover over. “L.”

“Ah,” she says. “For ‘learning.’ Learning anything interesting?”

“Not at all,” Conrad says. “I know everything already, so there’s no need for me to be reading this.”

Millie laughs. The sound is a relief. “I suspected as much. Come here. I know you’re nervous.” She pats the bed beside her.

Conrad goes over and climbs in, trying not to shake. Millie puts her book down and scoots over, tucking herself under his arm.

“Everything’s alright,” she says, putting her hand over his heart and looking up at him through her eyelashes. He can’t tell if she’s making things better or much, much worse. “We’re doing good work, Christopher trusts us, and it’s not like we haven’t done this before.” She wiggles her shoulder to indicate she means the closeness. “We sit around reading in my bed every weekend.”

Conrad sighs and leans back into his pillow, bringing Millie back with him. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just feel so superfluously guilty.”

“It’s because you’re secretly in love with me,” says Millie factually. Conrad laughs rather than having an aneurysm. “The tell-tale heart and all that. Dissemble no more, villain.”

“I do feel like a villain,” Conrad admits. “Quite a sexy villain, what with the international espionage and all. Maybe you’re the one secretly in love with me.”

Millie covers her face with her hands. “You’ve found me out!” she cries, muffled. 

“I knew it!” Conrad pumps his fists in the air. “I’m irresistable as an agent of evil.”

Millie dives under the covers, giggling. “The agent of good is too well-trained for that! She flees the scene, unseduced!”

“Hot pursuit!”

They bounce around on the bed like children. This is how most of their reading nights end. Millie insults the book Conrad is reading, Conrad whacks her with a pillow, and eventually somebody falls off the bed. This time Conrad cracks his head on a bedpost and has to lay down, while Millie conjures a cool cloth and tries not to laugh at him.

“I bet he’s staying at Le Royal,” Conrad says after a while. “Having truffles and frog’s legs.”

“And champagne.”

“And caviar.”

“Oh dear,” says Millie. “Do you think he brought a dressing gown?”

“What on Earth would he be wearing otherwise?”

“I’ve no idea. I’ve always suspected that if you looked under his shirt you’d see an embroidered peacock peeking out at you.”

“Oh Lord,” gasps Conrad. “I believe you.”

Millie takes him by the shoulders and stares very seriously into his face. “Tell no one,” she instructs, “least of all Christopher.” She composes herself. “Conrad, I once saw him in mauve shorts.”

“No!”

“Yes. And I know for a fact that he has turquoise ones as well.”

Conrad clutches at his face. “You’re lying.”

“And chartreuse.”

“Millie!”

“I’m not lying! I saw them, Conrad. I saw them with my own two eyes. I couldn’t look at him for a week.”

“I can’t hear anymore. I’m going to…” Conrad flaps his hands about. “Faint, possibly.”

Millie sits back, shaking her head slowly. “The remarkable thing was how very unsurprised I was. It made sense, in the way that gravity and germs do. Just seems to fit into the scheme of the universe.”

“They were silk, weren’t they?”

“Linen. I know, I was disappointed too.”

Conrad avoids thinking about Millie seeing Christopher in his undergarments. The thought makes his head pound where he hit it. 

“Is your head any better?”

Millie leans over him to ask. Her long black hair hangs around her face like a halo. 

“Yes, much.” Conrad sits up. “I’m fine. I’ve had worse.”

“I know, and that’s why I was concerned.” Millie eyes him untrustingly. “Boys have no sense of self-preservation. I oughtn’t be surprised, considering your idea of fun is climbing rocks and falling down mountains.”

“I don’t fall down mountains. I am on skis.”

“You fall about half the time.”

“I fall almost none of the time! You’re distracting is all. When you’re not there I never fall.”

“And what is so distracting about me?”

Conrad glares at her. “You’re convinced I’m going to fall and you’re an enchantress. You probably make me fall without meaning to.”

“Right, because I have no control over my magic! Honestly, Conrad. You fall around Christopher too.”

“Fine. I’m not as good as I say,” Conrad says. “Anyway, you ought to give it a try. Even falling through snow is quite fun.”

Millie shudders. “I’ll stay inside with the tea, thanks. I don’t know how you handle such temperatures.”

“My Germanic breeding,” Conrad deadpans. Millie lets out a peal of laughter.

“I’m turning off the light,” she says. “We need to be rested for tomorrow.” They arrange a time to wake up and settle under the covers.

It’s a large bed, for which Conrad is thankful. Millie seems to go to sleep immediately. There’s still adrenaline buzzing around his head. Every time he closes his eyes he gets an image of Millie looking down at him. He turns over to face her. Her face is mostly tucked under the duvet. There’s a piece of hair right across her nose and her mouth is open, lips pursed.

He imagines his arm around her. Millie is soft and lovely. Her figure makes him think of Greek statues. He remembers her bare legs, dark with hair, and her strong, round arms, the color of rosewood. 

What would it be like to truly hold her? He shifts away from her, aching. He remembers her tugging at his hair as she kissed him, remembers the way her breath smelled like peppermint. She filled the circle of his arms. He runs his hands across the sheets, imagining her weight on top of him, their lips together again. She moves on top of him, pressing him down, and it’s all he can do to to just clutch at her, running his hands helplessly up and down her back. She throws her head back and he kisses her neck, her collarbones, tries to move aside her nightgown. 

He twitches violently and his eyes shoot open, panicked that Millie is awake and judging him and he’s ruined everything and will have to go live in a convent in Series One. But she’s in the exact same position, lids twitching in a dream. He realizes he’s sweating and buries his face in the duvet. Hopeless.

The image won’t leave, although it’s not like he wants it to. When he goes back to it, resigned, oh Lord: they’re pressed together, almost naked. She tugs his shorts off of his legs and straddles him, drawing him up to her chest. He touches one of her breasts, astounded, and she laughs down at him. He feels utterly secure. She kisses him again, deeply, and he surges against her. Outside of the image, he runs his hand over his hips and across his cock, through the fabric of his nightclothes. His other hand goes up her leg until he can feel the brush of wiry hair on the back of his hand. She gasps into his ear. He screws up all his courage and strokes blindly, pressing his palm up against her. Conrad, she whispers. Her own hand goes between them, down and down, her fingertips light against his stomach, to flutter down his cock. He bites his lip for silence and parts his fingers, running two carefully down the sides of her labia. Then they’re racing each other, leaping into the river, his fingers swirling around her clit and dipping back, teasing her opening, her hand wrapped around his cock, the web between her thumb and forefinger whispering against his head.

He mouths her name, grasping his cock. In the image, she readjusts her grip. Ready? He chokes out a yes. She guides herself onto him, deliberately slow. He fumbles over her clit, trying to make sure he won’t hurt her. Her rings of muscle contract around him like a heartbeat. She settles over him, hand splayed over his chest, her eyes huge and blown. There is nothing in him that can express his awe. When she begins to move, he feels as if all he can do is breathe.

Abruptly she is pulling him up, still on him; making room. There is a breeze on his back, then warmth. Arms come around him and lips press against his neck. Millie leans forward and takes Christopher by the chin and kisses him.

If his heart hurt before, now it is burning. Christopher is kissing one side of his neck as Millie bites at the other. Their hands are in his hair, across his chest, skirting down his hips. Christopher presses his fingers expertly against Millie’s clit. She bites out an Oh and surges against them. Christopher’s other hand wraps around the base of Conrad’s cock, firm, and Conrad reaches forward to find Millie’s mouth with his own again.

Conrad comes with a low moan, lightning playing under his eyelids. The image melts away, and exhaustion brings him immediately into sleep.


	2. Two

The lady’s maid who attends Millie that morning wears a listening spell at her neck, in a lapis lazuli pendant. It must be precautionary: the maid asks no questions other than ones regarding Millie’s hair and clothing, and Millie offers no intelligence. The maid piles Millie’s hair up with pale pink ribbons and ties her into an ornate lavender gown. 

“Very French,” says Conrad.

He looks up at her from behind a large and ancient plate camera set up in the middle of their chambers. The lady’s maid had implied that Millie could proceed to breakfast on her own, but Millie does not want to go without Conrad. She touches her hair unconsciously, hoping her blush does not show, because she is suddenly remembering a dream she had last night about him.

“It’s quite tall,” she says. “It’s really too much for everyday.”

“Not if you’re Lucienne Paget’s newest recruit,” says Conrad, crossing his arms at her. “I’m sad to say that you fit in better, now. Yesterday’s look was excessively English.”

Millie hefts her skirts and trundles over to a mirror. “Good Lord,” she says, repelled by her reflection. “I look like Marie Antoinette.”

“It’s not that bad,” Conrad says, fiddling with the camera and grinning. “She had feathers. And more lace.”

Millie glares at him. “I am not comforted, Conrad. Do you really think they dress like this all the time? It’s day. This is an evening gown!”

“If you’re trying to take over Paris, eveningwear is mandatory.”

Millie puts her fists on her hips, but she knows that, if anything, the dress is not quite fancy enough. An enchantress of her status would be expected to wear this type of thing all the time, especially in hidebound Paris, where the upper classes believed that women of quality and good breeding should avoid trousers at all cost. 

Paget is already at breakfast by the time Millie and Conrad arrive, arm in arm. She is seated at the head of the table, sipping coffee and reading a thick, musty book that makes Millie’s nose wrinkle. Her dress today is robin’s egg blue, and her hair is curled in huge ringlets that drape around her head like a curtain. It should look awful on her, but there’s something incongruously perfect about how the girlish curls frame her sharp face.

To Millie’s surprise, Paget gives them time. Millie makes it through a pot and a half of coffee and a henhouse worth of eggs before Paget clears her throat. “I have an outing planned for today,” Paget says, closing her musty book. She has gone through another twenty pages of it by now. “Let us reschedule the laboratory visit and experiments. Today I think it would be quite fun to visit some of our favorite shops on the Rue Saint Honoré.”

Millie sees Conrad frown across the table, but she thinks she knows where Paget is going with this. “Excellent,” she says. “Am I right in remembering that the great Apothicaire Noir is on the Rue Saint Honoré? And Le Vide, the magical bookstore? Let’s see, there’s Le Café Étoile, where the luminaries of the Académie de Magie sometimes gather, and La Malédiction, the pub where Marie Antoinette and Mirabeau made their deal—”

Paget laughs. “I do not wish to draw you away from magic, Mademoiselle Asheth. We may certainly visit L’Apothicaire Noir and Le Vide and any other establishment you’d like. Conrad, you would wish to join us?”

It was more a statement than a question, and Millie knew Conrad had noticed the lack of an monsieur before his name. Conrad blotted his lips carefully on his napkin and laid it in his lap. “I would love to accompany you both. I’m interested in Le Vide, or any other store you’d like to see, dear,” he adds to Millie.

“Additionally,” Millie added, “if there is a jeweler in the Rue Saint Honoré, I would be glad to visit first. I need to raise funds.” She says it as if she is trying to be strong, but allows the smallest tremor in her voice, as if she is ashamed of her financial vulnerability.

“Of course,” Paget allows. “Your wish is our command.”

The sleek black automobile from the previous night whisks them through the broad Parisian streets. Millie stares out the window, an interested look plastered across her face, but she sees nothing. Does Paget need extra time to clear out Le Richau’s laboratories before Millie sees them? Are they setting a trap for her and Conrad? Are they checking to see if Millie is being followed, taking her across Paris like this? Millie feels certain that Paget believes her ruse. But she is not certain that Paget trusts Chrestomanci or the English government to let her go. And she is not certain that Paget trusts her to stay where she is instead of continuing to flee deeper into Europe, or even into another world.

They leave Conrad in Le Vide, the bookstore, with Victoire, who they picked up along the way. This surprises Millie—perhaps Victoire has more depth than suspected, for Paget to entrust Conrad to her—but most thoughts are gone from her head when they reach L’Apothicaire Noir.

The outer apothecary is as menacing as any; which is to say, extremely. Millie will never be able to walk into a crowded Series Twelve apothecary without shuddering. They are always full to bursting with dessicated crows and beetles and great vats of toad’s eyes and vials of neon poisons. She wrinkles her nose at the scent of decay and sulfur. Paget seems amused by her discomfort. Millie blinks at the spiky preservation spell around bundles of lavender and sage as Paget talks to a dark-haired man at the counter. Paget gestures to her, and together they go through a door and down a hall and through another door, ringed with locks and spells, into an inner apothecary.

This inner apothecary is clean and bright and white like a surgery. A globe of lights hangs from the ceiling. All along the walls are shelves that go from the floor to the ceiling. And on the shelves are bones, and sheets of skin, and ligaments wound around copper tubes, and teeth, and eyes in jars, and jugs of blood, and bundles of hair. It is organized exactly as Millie would like, and smells of antiseptic, but her heartbeat has risen to pounding, because each material has been taken, very clearly, from a human.

“Our true storeroom,” Paget says lightly. She draws a sheet of human skin from a long, flat shelf. The skin has been stretched and dried and treated like parchment. In fact, this is what it is for: to write out spells on, so that they will become potent when activated. The skin is pale. Paget runs her finger down the edge of it and Millie thinks she is going to vomit.

“Convicts, mostly,” says Paget. She replaces the skin on its shelf. “Not entirely. These—” She lifts up a small, locked chest. “—are from witches. Heartstrings. We have eyes from the blind and suchlike.”

“Ah,” Millie manages. She has no concept of how pale and distressed she must seem. Paget is not giving her any clues, and she is so upset that she cannot read her own behavior. “Is this not quite a ways from your laboratory?” she manages.

“Yes, but we have a separate stock there. Much lighter than this one. As I said, this is more of an overflow storeroom. We have enchanter’s knuckles in the lab, for instance. Our best prize.” Absently, Paget corrects the tag on a shelf of pickled ears.

Paget seems detached when she speaks. Millie considers, briefly, that Paget is as disturbed as she, but then dismisses the thought. More likely Paget is considering the power of the room. All told, the ingredients within could raise a small army. Millie has goosebumps under her long sleeves.

To avoid the sights on the shelves, Millie looks at the lights above them. They are a few wide glass globes attached to the ceiling by a bundle of chains. There are perhaps six or seven pale, glowing spheres floating inside of each globe pulsing like heartbeats. She squints to use her mage sight, and violet vines thick with thorns bloom around the globes.

Paget follows her gaze. “Have you seen one of these before?” she asks. Millie shakes her head. The vines are so heavy and strong that she can barely make out their nature. “It is a cage,” says Paget, smiling without her eyes. “Le Richau takes parts of certain people—people in the government, or the church, or certain powerful magicians—and locks them up here, in these globes.”

Millie knows that this alone could land Paget and the others in prison. “How?” she says. “And who?”

“How?” says Paget. She is unexpectedly solemn. “In the same way that you Anchored your paramor, Millie. Blood, glass, and fire. Except the way is not consensual. And the Anchored piece of a person, of a soul—” She gestures at the globes, her hand fluttering like the lights above. “—does not disperse into the magical atmosphere of the world. Since it is forcefully removed, not symbolically returned, it remains. That Anchor you created for Conrad melted into the earth. But this Anchor will remain corporeal until it is broken, and the souls are restored to their bodies.” She smiles again. “As to who… I cannot say.”

“Can this Anchoring be broken, then?” says Millie.

“All bonds may be broken,” says Paget. “This is why they are called bonds. But how, and why—again, I cannot say.” 

“Will you show me how to do this?” Millie says. “This is a skill I would like to learn.”

“You already know it, of course,” says Paget. “You take the love you feel, and you tear it in half and use it in the opposite way that it is meant to be used. As I said: it is the same way you Anchored Conrad. Le Richau will show you how. It is a useful skill to have.”

“Yes,” Millie says, “it does sound extremely useful.”

“It is,” says Paget shortly. She glances around the room to check that everything is in place. “I do not like this place. Small spaces disturb me.” She shudders theatrically. “Shall we?” She gestures to the door, and Millie opens it and practically falls through to get out. Wherever they go next—even if it is to do eight hours worth of fittings for dresses, which Millie hates—it would be better than this.

=

Victoire does not seem interested in conversing with Conrad. She wanders quickly off among the stacks in Le Vide. Conrad thinks that he is missing something. No car followed them. The driver has not returned to watch him. Victoire is definitely not within twenty meters of him; he sees her, far on the other side of the store, pass between two aisles. Is this truly a private moment? He dares not believe it.

Conrad briefly wishes he were as hung with protective charms and alerting spells as Victoire. He feels oddly vulnerable. Most of the books are in French, in which he is not truly fluent, and the hair is standing up at the back of his neck because he is absolutely convinced that Maxime or another of Le Richau is going to leap out from behind a bookshelf and shout that he’s working for the English and must be killed.

He rounds a corner in the travel section and a hand snakes out to grab his shoulder. Conrad grabs it and is about to pull and twist and throw its owner to the ground when magic flares, and his arms wobble. “Good gracious, Con!” Christopher says, eyebrows at his hairline. “A bit jumpy, are we?”

“Dammit, Christopher,” Conrad hisses, dropping Christopher’s hand like a hot iron. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!” He looks around hastily. “What are you doing here? This is the middle of the magic section of Paris!”

“My power is so well disguised that even I am having trouble finding it,” Christopher says. He is wearing a hideous tweed suit, and there are drips of a discarded glamor rolling down his neck. “Come here, there’s a storeroom.”

They wedge themselves into the storeroom, which is packed with crates of books. Christopher goes first, shoving inelegantly at boxes until he finds a clear space near the back. Conrad scales the crates instead of fighting against them like Christopher, who glares at him. “Must you show off?” Christopher grumbles, brushing imaginary dust off of the atrocious suit.

“I’m in desperate need of exercise,” Conrad deadpans, scaling some shelving. His curls brush against the low ceiling. He leaps down and lands, catlike, next to Christopher, who turns his nose up. “That suit is awful.”

“Isn’t it?” says Christopher, fingering the lapel. “I’m almost impressed. It’s like something my Uncle Ralph would wear. Fear not, I’m cowering with distaste inside.” He crosses one leg over the other delicately and folds his hands over his knee. “You’re essentially unchaperoned. That’s very strange.”

“It is,” Conrad agrees. He settles himself on a box across from Christopher—not too near, as if he can will away any latent feelings with proximal awareness. “I don’t understand it. It seems like a risk. Or a trap.”

“It’s possible,” Christopher allows. “I was extremely careful, believe it or not. You weren’t followed by anyone but me. Victoire isn’t wearing extra spells. The driver is waiting for Millie and Paget at the apothecary. Maybe they trust you. What happened last night? What did they say to you?”

What happened last night? Conrad swallows. He cannot look Christopher in the eye. “They talked about necromancy. They talked of raising living dead. Permanent reanimation, not just the temporary kind that most necromancers manage.”

Christopher nods. “As we suspected.”

“Millie has details. Do you want her to write it on the paper, or are you going to talk to her soon?”

“I would like to talk to her, but I’m not sure I’ll be able,” Christopher says. “Give me another two days, and if I haven’t managed to get her alone by them, have her write it on the paper.”

“Alright,” says Conrad. They discuss other details—the layout of Paget’s townhouse; the identities of every known member of Le Richau; the location of the laboratory. “Is there anything else?” Conrad asks, hoping he isn’t forgetting anything.

There’s silence. Conrad waits, staring at his shoes. He feels something at the edge of his magic sense, some tingle, but he doesn’t know what it is. He blinks, and looks up.

Christopher is watching him. Maybe it is the light—low and distant above—but Conrad thinks Christopher is flushed. He is certainly tapping his pointer against the side of his knee—a tell.

“Christopher?” says Conrad.

“Are you well?” asks Christopher.

His eyes are dark. He leans forward and Conrad is struck, strong as lightning, by how long and tall and lean and sharp Christopher is, even under that terrible tweed. 

“As well as I can be,” Conrad says warily.

“I mean—” Christopher rubs the bridge of his nose. “Con, I mean to say—I know that this must be very difficult. For you. I want you to know that I—I haven’t any ill will against you for what you are doing. That is, for the role that you are—are playing. As Millie’s paramour.”

“Oh,” says Conrad, mouth going dry.

“You are… lucky. Millie is by far the loveliest and brightest and most perfect woman to exist in any of the Worlds. But—” Christopher makes a face. “—please don’t tell her I’ve said that. She’d hit me and call me a sop.” This startles a laugh out of Conrad, and makes Christopher grin briefly. “She’s a Goddess, not to put too fine a point on it. If you grow closer to her during this time, that is acceptable.” He says this last delicately, enunciating each word.

“Alright,” says Conrad, hoping he’s conveying his confusion through his tone. “We’re friends—we always have been. We’re in this together.”

Christopher makes a small, annoyed noise. “Don’t be purposefully dim, Con,” he says. “You’re attracted to her.”

Conrad feels his jaw drop. “What?”

“You’re attracted to her,” Christopher repeats. His flush is very clear now, diffuse across his cheeks and neck; his ears are just about the color of tomatoes. “I’m trying to tell you that I quite understand your predicament.”

Conrad tries to say that he’s absolutely not, he would never, how dare Christopher, what’s this all about anyway—but what he ends up saying is: “How did you know?” in an extremely offended and embarrassingly high-pitched voice.

Christopher looks—relieved? Upset? It’s hard to tell; Conrad can barely sense anything other than the pounding of his heart and the clamminess of his skin. “You just—” Christopher flaps his hands about awkwardly. “—you follow her around. You can’t help it. She’s gravity and there’s nothing you can do but fall towards her. It’s how I feel, too.”

Conrad’s mouth is so dry now he has to swallow three times before he can speak. “Christopher. I’m so sorry—I don’t mean to—I’m not trying to take her—”

“No, I—” Christopher stands up, distressed, and Conrad does too, his knees wobbling. Has the storeroom been this hot the whole time? “It’s fine. You can feel this way. I don’t—I don’t mind.”

“I don’t understand,” says Conrad numbly. “Why are you saying this now? What are you trying to say?”

“I want to make you feel better,” Christopher says desperately. He’s gone pale like there’s silver nearby. “I can’t imagine how hard this is for you. I want you to be happy while this is happening. I don’t want you to feel guilty. I’m trying to help.”

“Do you want me to tell her this?” Conrad snaps. He is suddenly roaring with anger. He steps forward, fists clenched, glaring up into Christopher’s face. “How dare you presume. You don’t know anything about what I’m going through—and I don’t know anything about what she’s going through. She’s alone with Lucienne Paget right now. That woman could eat her alive. She’s been through hell for months preparing for this, and you want to just—just give me permission to—to do with her as I will? What the hell are you thinking? She’s a person, Christopher. She has a say.”

Christopher is almost white. He is staring directly down at Conrad, mouth a flat line, his nostrils flared. The lines of his cheeks and jaw sweep away into the darkness of his hair, and even trembling and muddled, he is so lovely Conrad wants to cry.

“That’s not what I meant,” Christopher says quietly.

“I don’t give a fuck what you meant,” says Conrad, utterly cold. “You said what you said. You can go to hell, Chant.”

He turns his back to Christopher and walks out of the storeroom. He can barely see. It’s pure luck that Victoire is loitering near the shop entrance. They go outside wordlessly, and Conrad follows her down the street, presumably towards Millie and Paget. The sky darkens, and the wind picks up; the scent of rain blooms across the cobblestones, portentous. Men are turning up their collars and ladies hold onto their skirts.

A few blocks down, Victoire takes Conrad’s forearm, very carefully, and lays her palm across it, warm. She says nothing, but when Conrad glances at her in surprise, she smiles, sympathetic and slight, barely meeting his eyes. Then she looks away, and they continue on through the streets, leaning together into the wind.

=

Paget takes Millie and Conrad and Victoire to two couturiers and a jeweler and endless curtains of rain before Maxime and Cosme meet them at La Malédiction, the bar. Maxime takes Paget aside for some time while Cosme and Victoire make awkward small talk with Millie; Conrad buries himself in a penny dreadful he found in a dressing room at the first shop to avoid it. Maxime comes back a little pale, and Paget has a wide smile. Was Maxime trying to tell her off for taking them out without an escort? It doesn’t seem to have worked, Millie thinks.

They dine on delicacies: oily onion soup, radish and endive and arugula salad, saffron-braised sole and lemon-tarragon steamed artichoke and cabbage, tiny éclairs and rainbow macarons and a lovely pot de creme that makes Millie so sleepy she orders another carafe of coffee. Conrad pretends to drink three glasses of chardonnay and starts talking about the Castle, which makes Maxime put down his sherry and Paget lean in to listen. There is a certain maniacal fervor to his act, and Millie hopes they are convinced; she is concerned about him, and she tries to catch his eye, but he will only give her a wooden, ironic smile, the same he shares with the rest of the group.

The afternoon is technical. Millie tries to talk them into going to the laboratory, but Maxime puts it off until the next day. Instead they visit the Egyptian galleries in the Louvre. Millie has been to the Louvre before, but not like this: they are escorted through side doors and through empty galleries until they reach the room containing the Book of the Dead. Paget speaks to a docent, and they are brought chairs, and a woman wearing white gloves and an eye-watering preservation spell comes to turn the pages of the book for them as they peruse it. They are brought refreshments and lenses with which to view the book, and another woman brings them canopic jars from the tomb of Narmer to study. 

Conrad reads his book in a corner. He finally smiles tightly at Millie when she looks at him, and she puts aside her worries as best she can, and smiles back.

It seems to be a second test. Paget and Maxime are treating Millie seemingly as an equal. They seek her opinion on every sentence; await her thoughts on disputed conjugations. She is the one who suggests bringing in the Narmer jars; she is the one who discusses the spells that guard them and charge them. She is the one who ties it all into reanimation, who keeps up the thread of renewal and preservation throughout.

At the end of it, Millie excuses herself and sweeps delicately out of the room. Conrad has been reading his book in the corner, and she allows herself to smile tightly at him. She walks through the long, gleaming halls, following yet another docent, her dress rustling in the silence.

She goes through a painted door into a powder room and sits down heavily on a padded stool. She is trembling. She puts her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands and breathes in and out in the steady way they taught her at the Temple. 

When she comes back, she tells them: “I honestly have never discussed necromancy for this long, or with such a sharp crowd.” Maxime looks surprised, briefly, then understanding. “I know you were testing me. I hope I did well.” She says this last with as ironic of a smile as she can muster.

Maxime laughs, and Paget smiles that awful smile again. “We are impressed,” Paget says, and Millie thinks she hears a trace of fondness in Paget’s voice. “I genuinely did not expect such a level of knowledge from you, Mademoiselle Asheth.”

“I knew she had it in her,” Maxime says. He strokes his moustache in contemplation. “I feel as if I’ve gone to a lecture. Very good work indeed. I think you’ll be impressed by our laboratory.”

“I can’t wait to see it,” Millie says sincerely. She sees Conrad grin out of the corner of her eye.

“Well,” says Paget, clapping her hands together. “What a productive day. Shall we break for the evening? Dinner at my house, seven o’clock.”

Back at Paget’s townhouse, everyone separates to change for dinner. Conrad has barely closed the door to the room before Millie is upon him and dragging him into the protection of the silencing spell.

She tells him about the storeroom, and the souls, and the concern she has, which is that if they arrest everyone in Le Richau as planned before the souls of released, they may never be.

“What does that mean for us?” says Conrad, brows furrowing.

“I think it means we need to get them to show us how to do it, so we can figure out how to undo it,” says Millie. “We have to release those people. I’m not sure how many it was—maybe ten? We can’t just leave them there. And if we arrest everyone in Le Richau, they won’t cooperate with us; they won’t tell us how to release them.”

“Why don’t you think you can’t just figure it out?” Conrad says.

Millie pauses. Before this, she had thought: How soon can I learn this? What can I say I need it for? Now she considered: How is this different? How does non-consensual Anchoring even work? Who can undo it—how much backlash will there be? Can Christopher and I do this? Can I do this on my own?

“That’s… true,” she said slowly. “I think I could figure it out. I mean—there’s a lot of theory I’d have to work through. But if I had Christopher, or if we had Gabriel, or, really, any high-level help at all…” She drifted off, considering. 

“I think you could do it yourself,” says Conrad. Millie blinks, because there is something high and innocent in his voice, in the way he is looking at her. “You Anchored me.”

“We Anchored you,” Millie says.

“I know,” says Conrad. He’s smiling, small and a little secret. “But you came up with it. You weren’t lying when you talked to them. You did the bulk of the work, the research. You understand how it works because you’re Anchored here too. You understand it. Christopher knows how to do it, intellectually—but he’s from this world. We aren’t. We know.”

“You’re underestimating his part it,” says Millie slowly, but she’s thinking. Conrad’s mostly right. Christopher had served as her board to bounce ideas off of. He had contributed a third of the magic and a third of the labor. But the enterprise itself had been her idea. She had roughly Anchored herself years before, when she was young and unsure what she was attempting, using an old painted porcelain bowl and half-considered spells and the roaring, awkward passion she’d felt for Christopher at fourteen and a half. She had used the experience—which had left her soul a little wonky for a few years, until she’d redone the Anchoring at seventeen with considerably more finesse—plus extensive research to refine the process.

And—a small part of herself will admit this—Conrad thinks she can, and that gives her strength. Conrad is often jaded and sarcastic—much too much time spent around Christopher, really—but just as often he is simply right, in a straightforward, muscular way. Conrad has the purest confidence in her: she can read it on his lovely face, in the knowing gleam of his eyes. She’d warned him too many times to count in the month leading up to his Anchoring, but he’d never shown any doubt in her or her methods, and she was certain that this, in part, had been a crucial element of the success. So much of magic, she thinks, looking at Conrad, is simply being sure it will work. 

“Do you know who they have trapped?”

Millie shakes her head. “Paget wouldn’t say. I think they might not be very good at it—she told me quite a lot about it. Maybe they think I can do it better since I’ve done it before, in the—in the pure way.”

“That’s probably the case,” Conrad says. “Listen—I talked to Christopher.” His face goes a little hard. “We had words.”

“What do you mean?” Millie feels herself tensing. “About what?”

Conrad looks flushed, but maybe that’s the light. “He wanted to talk about our having to… to act like a couple… and I didn’t want to talk about it. We left it pretty raw. Well, I left it pretty raw.”

“What did you say?” Millie demands. Conrad’s face goes wrinkled and closed. She sighs. “You don’t have to tell me. Why don’t men have any emotional intelligence? Must you have really chosen this moment to have a domestic?”

“It wasn’t me,” Conrad says strongly, but he deflates rapidly. “Well. I was a little set off, but it was mainly him. I’ll maintain that before a court, honestly Millie.”

They continue trading information while they change for dinner. Millie has just slipped on her carriage boots there is an odd magic flicker, and then darkness, like a snuffed-out candle, off to the side.

Their eyes both turn. It came from the corner of the room—no, from a different room. “You felt it?” Conrad says, standing up. 

“Yes—it was this floor,” says Millie. She frowns and peels down some of her silencing spell. “I think—this way.”

They go to the door. Millie does her best to look for anything that will track them, but beyond her layers of protection, the room and the door and the hallway are simply draped with charms and enchantments, and she does not have time to identify all of them. Whatever flickered felt… not urgent, exactly, but substantial and important. She reaches behind her and takes Conrad’s hand. They lean out the door and look up and down the long hall. No one.

“It felt very… vulnerable,” Conrad whispers. “Like something failed naturally.”

“I think whatever-it-was reached the end of its half-life,” Millie whispers back. They turn right out the door and tiptoe towards the great plate windows at the end of the corridor. There is another right turn, and they take it. Millie squints and wishes she had dragon’s blood or some other sort of aid—as it is, if they are found, she can only make excuses.

They follow the second corridor to a plain-looking door, which they go through into a simple wood paneled storage room. There is a blue curtain hanging in a threshold on the left. Millie pushes it—and a heavy, empty shell of magic—aside.

There is a spell on the floor, and it stops her heart.

“Oh my God,” says Conrad. “Millie, is that—is that tracking—”

Millie sinks to her knees and tries to touch the map that is laying on the floor, which is infused with the strongest tracking spell she has ever felt. But she cannot touch the paper—an inch above it, the air is completely solid. The map is of Paris, and there are two figures on it. She is too shocked to look at one of them closely, because the second figure, which is like an inkblot in the exaggerated shape of a person, is standing in the middle of the Hotel le Royal, and contained in the center of its black body like a ruby in a grimy setting is a drop of blood—Christopher’s blood. She knows. She can sense the blood in her Anchor calling to it.

“Oh my God,” says Conrad again, high-pitched. 

Millie grabs blindly for his hand. “Give me your power,” she says, and he gasps a little as he lets her take it from him through his palm. She tries to push her fingers into the air above the map, focusing, but she is panicking, and the magic slips into fine ribbons, sliding all over the floor, and she has to gather it up before trying again, and almost immediately she is sweating, because, oh, Asheth, it’s not budging at all, at all. She calls fire, desperate, sheets of it, but she’s never encountered a spell as blank as the one protecting the map. Like a glass case, the spell is completely protective and transparent and smooth. There aren’t even cracks. She tries to burn the floor underneath it away, but the protection extends under the paneling, and small puffs of steam are coming up from the fire: her evaporating tears.

Conrad is tugging at her shoulder. She calls a gleaming blade of ice and tries to cut the protection open, but the knife bounces off and disintegrates into icicles. “We have to go,” Conrad is gasping in her ear. “There’s someone coming.” She lets him pull her up and through the curtain and the door. They run back to their room. The corridors are blurry and she trips every several feet and Conrad has to catch her or tug her back up. 

“We have to go to him,” she gasps as soon as the door is closed and she has stuck her silencing spell back up. “That was Paget’s spell. I could tell! I could feel it!” She turns in a circle. “Wait! The paper!”

Conrad dives for her purse and turns it upside down. Millie snatches the two-way paper from amongst coins and charms and hairpins and smooths it out on the desk. “Okay. We tell him Paget is tracking him. What else?”

“Where the spell is. That we can’t break it,” Conrad says. Millie can sense whoever-it-is approaching, now; thank Asheth that Conrad had been paying attention. She presses a pen to the paper and writes: You are being tracked by Lucienne Paget. Found map tracking you with a drop of your blood on second floor of Paget townhouse. One left and two right turns from main stairs; door is at end of corridor. Map is heavily protected by spell not vulnerable to ice or fire or my power. Paget tracking someone else on same map; unsure who. We are safe. 

She pauses, considering what else to write, but she has run out of time. The message fades into the paper like too many suns have shone upon it. “That was enough,” says Conrad quickly, seeing her expression. “I can’t think of anything else—”

There is a knock at the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much to everyone who left comments—i truly, truly appreciate them, and go back and read them often to encourage myself to write more! i expect there to be two or three more parts. reminder—you can find me on tumblr @ tacroy (although most of you have probably come from there ^__^)


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